Page 23 of Deacon

She laughed into my chest and said it back, muffled against leather, and called me an idiot in the same breath. I took both.

The bike stayed out front all night.

At six the next morning I walked out of the front door of that bakery in my cut with a coffee in my hand and her kisses still fresh in my mind.

Earl Tate was coming up the sidewalk with his thermos. He stopped dead. His eyes went to the bike, to me, then through the window to Chelsea behind her counter with her hair coming loose and her cheeks flaming.

“Well,” Earl said. “Took you long enough.”

“Morning, Earl.”

Behind the glass, Chelsea covered her face with both hands. I took my time walking to the bike.

Across the street, Linda was out walking her terrier. She stopped so fast the dog sat down. I raised my coffee to her. “Morning, Linda!” I said, just embracing the impending gossip.

By noon, the whole of Salvation knew. By two, Chelsea had sold out of everything in the case, because half the town had found a reason to come in and talk to her.

“I’ve never had a better Sunday,” she told me that night, counting the till with her feet up on my lap. “I should’ve slept with you years ago.”

“I’ve been telling you that since the first roll.”

“You never said a word!”

“Maybe I was too busy enjoying the rolls.”

She threw a quarter at me. I caught her ankle instead and ran my thumb up the inside of her calf, and she lost count of the till and had to start again, and then she gave up on the till altogether and kissed me.

The first Sunday of the month, I rode her to her father’s house for dinner.

She climbed on behind me outside Sweet Thing, in front of anyone who cared to watch, and wrapped her arms around my waist, and we went down Main at a speed that would’ve given Linda a heart attack. Harry lived in a stucco house on the north edge of town. I pulled up at the curb and cut the engine.

“You don’t have to wait,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll be back in a few hours.”

She kissed me and went up the path. The door opened. Harry stood there holding it for her. His gaze went past her to me, on my bike at his curb in full colors, and after a second he nodded once. It was the nod of a man noting a new line in his ledger. Then the door shut.

I went for a ride, and watched the light change as the day moved on and let my head go quiet, which was a rare pleasure. I eventually made my way back to Harry’s house and waited.

When she came out, she walked down the path slowly with her hands in her jacket pockets.

“How was it?”

“He hasn’t changed. He told me what the ice house is worth now.” She swung her leg over behind me. “Twice.”

I laughed, and then she laughed too, with her face pressed between my shoulder blades.

I’d fallen for her a long time ago, over a glass case full of bread, in a town everybody else had written off. I’d been waiting on the other side of that counter ever since, buying bread I didn’t need just so I could hear her say my name.

Tomas Rivas was still out there. He’d come for this town again, one way or another, and when he did, we’d still be here.

I started the bike and took her home.

EPILOGUE

CHELSEA

The first pumpkin empanadas of the season came out of the oven at six-forty, and by six-forty-five Ava-Rose Bolton had bought three of them.